Apple confirmed its plans to acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music in a $3 billion deal that would bring a successful headphone business and a fledging streaming music service under Apple’s umbrella. Although many have pointed to Jimmy Iovine as the acquisition target, Apple may also be using the deal to boost its “coolness” factor among younger users as suggested in a survey by education technology company, Chegg.

Chegg ran a survey where it asked 10,000 students about their experience with Beats and their knowledge of the Apple-Beats merger. Although many of the students surveyed were familiar with the Beats brand, only 15% had purchased Beats products and a mere 3% had subscribed to the Beats Music service. More than half of the students (60% to be exact) were aware of the deal with a quarter of them claiming the deal will make Apple more “cool” and 50% believing the acquisition will increase Apple’s popularity among students.

The following was said regarding the matter:

This is largely good, albeit unsurprising, news for Apple, which has long dominated the college market. In most college lecture halls across the country, you’ll see rows and rows of MacBooks — many of which were purchased using Apple’s educational discount or in Apple-affiliated campus stores. Still, more and more young people are streaming music using services other than iTunes. Spotify has more than 40 million subscribers, and 40 percent of its American users are between the ages of 18-24.

Beats are often criticized as being a bass-heavy fashion accessory and not a true audiophile product. That being said, sales figures reveal that the typically younger consumers who buy Beats are more interested in appearance than audio quality. According to market research company, NPD, Beats accounts for 27% of the $1.8 billion headphone market and more than half (57%) of the premium market for headphones with a starting price tag of $100 or more.

I would have to agree. I tried these when they first came on the market and i was NOT impressed. I found that the Bose noise canceling headphones were far superior. Shoot, I would even take the Souls over Beats.

I am worried at how much they paid for this company. I agree with the other comments about the quality of these headphones. I don't listen to a lot of rap music, so I don't need/want bass blowing out my ear drums anyway. If they spent 3 Billion to look cool, that is a bad sign for me as a shareholder.

Here are kids with no sense of value buying expensive phones and headphones while I'm just happy with using the $5 pair of JVC headphones I got. Beats are way over-hyped but I believe the true reason Apple bought Beats is for it's music service.